Monographs, chapters & articles

Some journal articles and book chapters can be accessed through Professor Roberts’ SSRN page.  You can also access articles for non-academic media through Contently.net.

Monographs:

• Large Forces: What’s Missing in Public Administration
  • CreateSpace, updated June 2014. Purchase paperback or Kindle version from Amazon.
  • Preview on Google Books.
  • Read/download on Internet Archive
• So-Called Experts: How American Consultants Remade the Canadian Civil Service, 1918-1921
  • Read/download on Internet Archive
  • Kindle edition (2012):
    • Purchase from Amazon
  • Print edition (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1996)
    • Bibliographic data and availability in libraries (from WorldCat)
    • Full-text search (from Google Books)
    • Purchase from Amazon.com

A partial selection of books containing chapters written by Professor Roberts is available here.

Direct links to magazine and newspaper articles:

• It’s a turbulent world.  The Conversation and Salon, March 2, 2018.
• Grand strategy isn’t grand enough, ForeignPolicy.com, February 20, 2018.
• Let’s end the first hundred days, OUPblog, April 29, 2017.
• Beware attack on openness, Winnipeg Free Press, October 15, 2014.
• Technocrats or populists: Who gained influence during the Global Financial Crisis?  Public Sector (New Zealand), July 2014.
• Why Occupy lost its steam, New Statesman, May 2-8, 2014.
• What’s missing in public administration? The big picture. PA Times, May 2014.
• How default produced constitutional change, PA Times, November/December 2013.
• Who should run the Fed? ForeignAffairs.com, September 22, 2013.
• Fourth of July a day of bloody protest, Bloomberg.com, July 3, 2013.
• Triumph of the technocrats, ProspectMagazine.co.uk, May 28, 2013.
• Why Thatcher wasn’t her era’s most transformative leader, Bloomberg.com, April 12, 2013.
• Lessons from the political gridlock of 1842, PBS NewsHour, February 28, 2013.
• Obama says we must never default, but would it really hurt us if we did?  PBS NewsHour, February 13, 2013.
• Transparency is vital in these times, Dominion Post, November 19, 2012.
• Access to Information: The Elements of Reform.  Prepared for Office of Information Commissioner, Government of Canada, November 2012.
• Warren Harding’s fatal quest for normalcy.  Bloomberg.com, November 12, 2012.
• How Congress prevented the “fiscal cliff” of the 1840s, Bloomberg.com, October 24, 2012.  Republished by Newsday.
• En qué falló el Occupy Movement, Literal Magazine, September 2012.  Also in PDF.
• How US naval power grew to match mercantile ambitions, Bloomberg.com, August 31, 2012.
• Post Office blues, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2012.
• Why Occupy failed, ProspectMagazine.co.uk, June 21, 2012.
• The Government We Deserve, ForeignPolicy.com, May 21, 2012.
• Can Occupy Wall Street Replace the Labor Movement? Bloomberg.com, May 1, 2012.
• FDR’s Dictatorship Plan, Bloomberg.com, March 20, 2012.
• Washington weathered a terrible economy and great power rivalry before, History News Network, February 27, 2012.
• Lessons for Europe from America’s First Great Depression, Bloomberg.com, January 4, 2012.
• Containing Outrage: How Police Power Tames the Occupy Movement, Boston Review, November 2011.
• The WikiLeaks illusion, Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2011.
• “A precipitous situation, not without precedent,” Boston Globe, July 10, 2011.
• ¿El fin de los guardianes?, Public (Boletín del Instituto de Gobernanza y Dirección Pública de ESADE), October 2010.
• “An ungovernable anarchy”: The United States’ response to depression and default, Intereconomics, 45.4 (July-August 2010). pp. 196-202.
•  The US had a default crisis too, ProspectMagazine.co.uk, March 3, 2010
•  The rise and fall of the guardians, ForeignAffairs.com, January 25, 2011
• India’s Right to Information Act: The first four years, freedominfo.org, January 13, 2010
• The dangers of guardian rule, Guardian Public, January 12, 2010.
• Right to information: Need for an enforcement strategy, Accountability Forum, January 13, 2010.
• The case against guardian power, Suffolk University Law School Alumni Magazine, Fall 2009.
• Contribution to What comes next?, Prospect, January 2009.
• The war we deserve, Foreign Policy, November/December, 2007 (Cover story)
• Good intentions, bad idea, Government Executive, August 27, 2007
• A complex battle over openness.  Travers City Record-Eagle, March 11, 2007.  (Syndicated for Sunshine Week 2007)
• The Bush years, in a word,  Washington Post, January 1, 2007, page A13.
• System failure, Prospect, October 2005.
• The Insider, Saturday Night Magazine, October 2005, page 15.
• The lessons of Deep Throat, Prospect, September 2005.
•  The seven-year botch, Toronto Globe and Mail, July 7, 2005.
•  Free to distrust, Prospect, February 2005.
•  What does NATO expect? Dnevnik (Sofia, Bulgaria), October 15, 2003
•  Is there a double standard on access to information? Policy Options, May/June 2002.
•  Lockbox government, Government Executive, May 2000 (Cover story)
•  REGO around the world, Government Executive, January 1, 1999
•  Command performance, Government Executive, August 30, 1996
• Building a Common Services Department: The Establishment of Public Works and Government Services Canada.  Canadian Centre for Management Development.  1995.